Agilent’s new N7745A and optical power meters with four or eight power-sensor channels provide manufacturing customers with increased throughput and operational efficiency to meet today’s challenges in manufacturing. Designed for characterizing optical multiport components, these optical power meters offer industry-leading solutions for device connectivity, high-speed measurement data acquisition and fast data transfer for post-processing. The multiport power meter enables fast measurement solutions for all multiport devices; for example multiplexers, PON splitters, wavelength selective switches (WSS) and ROADMs, as well as compact setups for simultaneous testing of multiple single-port devices.

The N7745A power meter achieve a level of space-saving channel density that is new in the industry. This is complemented by the ease of integrating multiple instruments into a single setup with parallel programming over the LAN or USB connections.

The multiport power meter is an LXI Class-C-compliant instrument, developed using LXI Technology. LXI, an acronym for LAN eXtension for Instrumentation, is an instrument standard for devices that use the Ethernet (LAN) as their primary communication interface. Hence, it is an easy-to-connect instrument with integrated Web browser that provides convenient configuration of the instrument’s functionality.

With this new power meter comes the unprecedented N7740 fiber connectivity concept, which is a quadruple adapter (quad-adapter) with a snap-on quick-locking mechanism. The device to be tested can be connected to the quad-adapter in a comfortable ergonomic working position, even while the instrument is measuring another device. Then the quad-adapter can quickly be snapped on, to provide repeatably high-precision connections. Use of the quad-adapter simplifies aligning connector keys, especially for rack-mounted instruments and makes it easier to connect ports in the desired order, helping to avoid errors and connector damage.

Features:

• 1 µs minimum averaging time
• Dynamic range up to 65dB in swept and logging applications without ranging
• Power uncertainty of ±2.5 %
• Low polarization dependence of <±0.01 dB
• 1250 to 1650 nm wavelength range
• Patented 4-port optical connector interface for FC, SC, LC, MU and bare-fiber
• Memory for 1 M samples/port plus 1 M/port buffer for continuous logging
• Fully compliant to LXI Class C specifications
• LAN, USB and GPIB programming interfaces
• Code compatibility to Agilent’s Lightwave measurement system platform

Benefits:

10x faster than previous measurement solution

• High-speed measurement data acquisition up to 1 Mio. samples/s

25x higher time resolution for transient analysis

• Short minimum averaging time of 1 µs

Unprecedented device connectivity (Patented):

• Industry-leading solutions to separate the connecting task from the measurement task
• Fibers can be comfortably attached to the quad-adapter away from the power meter
• The quad-adapter supports MU, FC, SC and LC connectors, as well as bare fiber connectors

Flexibility:

• The instrument can be controlled via LAN and USB, as well as GPIB for compatibility with existing equipment
• The comprehensive hardware and trigger concept along with its large memory storage gives you the flexibility to adapt the power meter to many test needs.
• The instrument programming code is compatible to the Lightwave solution platform